


a sprig of lilac

by Chromathesia



Series: fh fics by chrom [3]
Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series), Fantasy High
Genre: CW: it gets dark near the end, Gen, Sandralynn really deserves more love y'all, This is my contribution to that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25686313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chromathesia/pseuds/Chromathesia
Summary: Sandralynn has a book of remedies that she can forage. It comes in handy, sometimes.
Series: fh fics by chrom [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1782916
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	a sprig of lilac

**Author's Note:**

> While these are all actual plant-based therapies that people have used for the reasons that Sandralynn does, I suggest doing your own research before going out and stuffing leaves into your mouth.

**page 36- valerian**

Sandralynn thinks that preparing valerian is almost as therapeutic as the tincture that results. It’s a multistep process that spans weeks, even months. It’s close to midnight and she’s just returned from foraging, her bag full of the white wildflower and a few other herbs she noticed, and as she enters the room in Mordred Manor designated for preparing her various ranger remedies, she touches the roots she had tied up to dry days before, checking to see if they were ready. Aguefort didn’t require rangers to know quite as many natural remedies as druids did—they weren’t as dependent on nature for their skills, after all—but the school had required some general knowledge of essentials and Sandralynn had decided to hold onto her handmade book of herbs and roots after graduating.

She carefully cuts down one bundle of valerian roots and sets them on a cutting board. She’ll prepare the plants she picked today later; for now, she picks up a knife and methodically begins shredding the dried roots. The chopped-up roots are stuffed into a brown-glass bottle, and she sticks a funnel into the mouth of the bottle and pours in a few shots’ worth of vodka. Satisfied, Sandralynn turns, knife still in hand, to grab the bag of freshly picked valerian.

Fig is standing in the doorway, staring at Sandralynn’s hand (gripped around the knife the way an assassin might hold a dagger or a surgeon might hold a scalpel). Something haunts her, in the very back of her gaze; Sandralynn remembers seeing Fig at the other end of her bow and arrow and a lump almost too big to swallow back forms in her throat.

She carefully turns back around, placing the knife down on the cutting board. “Do you need anything, sweetie? It’s pretty late.” she asks.

Fig’s gaze had followed the knife but it snaps back to Sandralynn now. “Um. It’s just. Adaine can’t sleep.”

“I’m assuming you can’t as well, seeing as you’re up,” Sandralynn says, an eyebrow raised. Fig doesn’t respond but the guilt in her eyes gives her away.

Sandralynn turns back to her desk and grabs a different brown-glass bottle, the same remedy prepared months earlier. She follows her daughter down the hallway to the Abernant sisters’ room. Aelwyn is also awake, but she merely glares daggers at Sandralynn for a moment before turning back to where Adaine is lying on her bed, staring up at the bottom of the top bunk.

“You can’t keep relying on this to fall asleep,” Sandralynn says, her scolding half-hearted as Adaine doesn’t respond, sits up, and merely opens her mouth expectantly. Sandralynn conceals her concern in an exasperated sigh and carefully drips some of the prepared tincture into her mouth. Adaine’s face screws up instinctively at the combined flavor of alcohol and valerian. She says nothing and lies back down in her bed, eyes closed now to try and slip into her trance.

“Did you want any, Fig? Aelwyn?” Sandralynn asks quietly. Aelwyn shakes her head no. Fig hesitates before doing the same.

“Thanks, Mama,” Fig says quietly. Sandralynn hears the dismissal in her voice.

**page 28- common plantain**

Fig is an adventurous kid, and she loves the forest (this detail makes Sandralynn’s heart dance). She likes running off on her own, pigtails bobbing, and Sandralynn bites back her mothering instinct to let her daughter romp around. Gilear may have wanted to raise a prim, perfect elven daughter, but Sandralynn knows how constricting that feels and won’t let her daughter be anything less than an independent spirit.

(This exasperates her later in life, but she doesn’t know what’s to come.)

Summer is sleepy and humid in Elmville and drones with the buzz of cicadas and bees, and it feels like every single day, Fig comes home, absently scratching at a new red bump on her fingers.

After a few weeks of watching Fig collect bee stings and mosquito bites like they’re candy, Sandralynn decides to go with her in the forest. Fig is not happy about this, especially since Baxter isn’t coming with them.

“Mamaaaa, I can be by myself! I’m a big girl.”

The eight-year-old’s whining makes Sandralynn smile as she looks back at her little girl, stomping and pouting. She is slightly flushed from exertion (Sandralynn tells herself).

“I just want to show you my best friend,” Sandralynn says.

“Isn’t Baxter your best friend?” Fig asks.

Sandralynn taps her nose. “Cheeky.”

They arrive at a bit of a forest clearing, and Sandralynn scans the ground until she sees a cluster of proud green stalks. She walks over and motions Fig over.

“Here they are,” she says.

“Mama. Those are weeds.” Fig deadpans.

“Not just weeds,” Sandralynn says. “These are common plantain, and they’ll be your best friend in the wood, too.”

Fig looks at her, confused.

Sandralynn smiles before deftly picking the fullest leaves off of a plantain plant. “Let me show you,” she says. She puts the leaves in her mouth (Fig’s eyes go wide) and chews them into a paste. She quickly spits it out into her palm before plastering it onto a bug bite of her own. “See, if you ever have a bug bite, you can take some of these leaves, chew them up, and put them on top of the bug bite. In about fifteen minutes, it will feel much, much better. You might have to put a cloth on top of them and tie it down to make sure the leaves don’t fall off though.”

Fig scrunches her face before turning to the plantain. Perhaps if Fig didn’t know Sandralynn was a ranger she would doubt her more, but she carefully picks three leaves, awkwardly chews them up (her face twists further), and spits them out onto her hand. She clumsily presses the half-chewed poultice on a new bump on her forearm, her expression lightening into surprised delight a few minutes later as she feels the bump begin to itch less and less.

“Whoa,” she says, turning to Sandralynn.

Sandralynn smiles at the awed expression.

**page 44- nettle**

Sandralynn goes almost crazy in the woods the moment she found out she was pregnant, filling pockets and foraging bags with stinging nettle leaves, ignoring as they pricked her fingertips and left her hands almost unusable. Gilear had smiled at the sheer amount of leaves that were drying in their kitchen during those first few weeks, choosing not to question his ranger wife and her remedies. Sandralynn feels a twinge of guilt at the thought of her faithful husband; he doesn’t deserve what she did, and his excitement at the feeling of a small finger poking through her belly pains her, sometimes. She wonders if she wants him to leave her. She doesn’t think she does.

She wonders if Gilear has any suspicion. Sandralynn has wanted too much of the pregnancy for herself and barely given him a crumb, after all. She’s always been a demanding sort of person, but something about carrying a baby had made her ten times more irritable and five times more impatient. He’s been a saint through it, really, running to gas stations for her midnight cravings and massaging her feet when all Sandralynn could do was cry from how much they ached. Sandralynn had come up with Figueroth’s name, and when Gilear ventured a suggested middle name Sandralynn had shot it down. She hadn’t even told Gilear before her first trimester had ended, even though her doctor had told her she could. There was something about knowing that this child was all her own, not something that belonged to her husband (and definitely not something that belonged to the child’s father).

Sandralynn didn’t know if she would be a good mother, but she would sure try her damned best.

It’s her third trimester; her daughter’s birthday is drawing near, and Sandralynn is honestly a bit surprised that she hasn’t run out of nettle yet. She makes it in a tea every morning; Gilear must think it a strange craving. She wonders if he’s been buying dried nettle from someone so that she never runs out; this thought also adds to the bead of guilt that’s been building up in her stomach.

She pushes that thought away. She makes herself a cup of tea: raspberry, ginger, nettle. She sips it. Gilear walks in, kisses her gently on the cheek, and turns to make (burn) some toast. Her heart flutters. She takes another sip of tea.

**page 2- yarrow**

It’s her last foreign mission for the Solisian Rangers. She loves adventuring but she loves Gilear more and when he asks her to marry him, she says yes and they plan to settle down in Elmville. She had this final hunt before she could just patrol the woods closer to the small town, and while she looked forward to slowing down for once (in a way she never thought she could) she knew with a twinge that she would miss travelling.

Her quarry is in sight: a massive, grey-scaled Hydra, stumps already cauterized apart from two heads, limping in front of her. It stands so many heads taller than her but the rest of her team had been poisoned or maimed or otherwise incapacitated so it’s just her, Sandralynn and her bow and arrow and a giant serpentine creature. She hoped the druid that had been assigned to her team knew how to reset Baxter’s wing bone properly; if they managed to fuck his shoulder up, there would be hell to pay.

Sandralynn isn’t tired of these monster-hunting missions but the ring on her left hand weighs her down far more than the woven silver lace should (it is heavy with promises that Sandralynn must keep now) and she feels a hummingbird drumming in her chest at the thought of not coming back.

(Once upon a time, she would have been fine with not coming back.)

There’s a cut on her hand. It is bleeding sluggishly. The flesh is ragged and Sandralynn can see dirt and dust and sweat in it, so before infection sets in she takes out her canteen and hisses as she pours water over it to clean the wound out. She digs a hand into one of the many pouches around her belt and rummages through her foraged leaves until she runs a finger along the feathery yarrow leaves she keeps in there. She methodically chews them into a fine paste that she nudges into the wound. It stings, but it always does, and Sandralynn grits her teeth and stuffs the hand into a glove and shoulders her bow. She flexes her fingers, satisfied that the yarrow is doing what she needs it to.

The resulting battle is surprisingly less notable than she’d thought it would be. A hydra, even one with just two heads, is normally too dangerous for a single person to fight head-on, but Sandralynn has her tenacity-borderline-desperation and it is already grievously wounded and when she finally cauterizes one neck and slices the head off of the other the monster falls to the ground. There are more wounds on her body but she simply sits down, among the carnage, and cleans the cuts, chews her yarrow, and binds it to her body. She is torn and cut and bruised and poisoned but she will put herself together with plants and tonics and that is just how the world will be.

Sandralynn runs her thumb over the ring and sighs and stands up and leaves the forest.

**[a torn-out page]- cotoneaster**

The first thing that ranger classes teach you is that red berries are generally bad to consume. Some are edible, some are even tasty, but too many are toxic for humanoids to consume. The first few weeks of ranger classes at Aguefort had been drilling each and every species of red berry that one might come across near Elmville and Bastion City.

So, yes, Sandralynn is fully aware that she is stuffing handfuls of cotoneaster into her mouth.

She doesn’t know if it’s the overwhelming acrid flavor or the instinct to vomit out the mouthfuls that she has been choking down that is making her feel more ill. She has the feeling it’s something more than just that. She has the feeling that the dark pit in her stomach is from the sour rejection that threw her off of her pedestal and onto the loam. The humiliation is what has her forcing down berries that her body is screaming at her not to eat.

There is something so horrible about a young person’s heart being torn to shreds in front of her. It’s made exponentially worse when it’s done purposefully, done to do nothing more than tear her down to less than nothing, to shove in her face that she has always been nothing.

Another sprig of berries makes its way into her mouth. Oh, this hurts, this hurts, but maybe it won’t hurt in a little while. It hadn’t hurt when she had been slyly courted, a thumb across her cheek, her lips, her forehead, her hair. It hadn’t hurt until she dared to believe something was there, a spark that could be kindled into something ineffably  _ beautiful _ .

Now, it hurts.

The next bunch of berries meant to make it into her mouth falls to the ground as she shudders, unable to hold herself up. Her vision is fading, her fingers are numb; she didn’t know if the toxin in these berries would affect her differently as a wood elf (and now, it seems, she knows the answer) (the answer is yes) (oh, how everything hurts so sweetly).

She collapses onto the ground and feels her stomach heave, trying to force out the punishment she pushed herself through. She hears something splatter. She doesn’t know what it is, really, but she can guess. Even her body is rebelling against her wishes. Everything is against her.

Sandralynn doesn’t know when she blacked out, but when she comes to, she is staring up at the canopy. It must be a cloudy sky; the light filters in cool through the leaves. She hadn’t noticed that earlier. She hadn’t noticed a lot, besides her one-track goal. It’s a beautiful sight. How long had it been since Sandralynn looked up at the sky?

She picks herself back up and looks at the ravaged bush that she had crouched beside. She picks one last berry, rolls it in her fingers. It is cool, round, small.

Sandralynn crushes it between her fingertips, drops the skin-and-pulp mess, unsteadily gets to her feet, and stumbles away, towards the forest path that leads back to town.


End file.
